Support NeoGAF

[tcrunch]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/03/m...-practice-of-sex-testing-female-athletes.html

Interesting (and very long) article about the history of this practice in both the Olympic body and other athletic organizations, and also some history on intersex female Olympians. It also does a good job of breaking down the many different intersex or atypical chromosomal states people can have, if you are unfamiliar:

The word “hermaphrodite” is considered stigmatizing, so physicians and advocates instead use the term “intersex” or refer to the condition as D.S.D., which stands for either a disorder or a difference of sex development. Estimates of the number of intersex people vary widely, ranging from one in 5,000 to one in 60, because experts dispute which of the myriad conditions to include and how to tally them accurately. Some intersex women, for instance, have XX chromosomes and ovaries, but because of a genetic quirk are born with ambiguous genitalia, neither male nor female. Others have XY chromosomes and undescended testes, but a mutation affecting a key enzyme makes them appear female at birth; they’re raised as girls, though at puberty, rising testosterone levels spur a deeper voice, an elongated clitoris and increased muscle mass. Still other intersex women have XY chromosomes and internal testes but appear female their whole lives, developing rounded hips and breasts, because their cells are insensitive to testosterone. They, like others, may never know their sex development was unusual, unless they’re tested for infertility — or to compete in world-class sports.

Some history tidbits:

Amid complaints about the genital checks, the I.A.A.F. and the I.O.C. introduced a new “gender verification” strategy in the late ’60s: a chromosome test. Officials considered that a more dignified, objective way to root out not only impostors but also intersex athletes, who, Olympic officials said, needed to be barred to ensure fair play. Ewa Klobukowska, a Polish sprinter, was among the first to be ousted because of that test; she was reportedly found to have both XX and XXY chromosomes. An editorial in the I.O.C. magazine in 1968 insisted the chromosome test “indicates quite definitely the sex of a person,” but many geneticists and endocrinologists disagreed, pointing out that sex was determined by a confluence of genetic, hormonal and physiological factors, not any one alone.

The night before the race, a team official told her that her chromosome test results were abnormal. A more detailed investigation showed that although the outside of her body was fully female, Patiño had XY chromosomes and internal testes. But because of a genetic mutation, her cells completely resisted the testosterone she produced, so her body actually had access to less testosterone than a typical woman. Just before the Spanish national championships began, Spanish athletic officials told her she should feign an injury and withdraw from athletics permanently and without fuss. She refused. Instead, she ran the 60-meter hurdles and won, at which point someone leaked her test results to the press. Patiño was thrown off the national team, expelled from the athletes’ resi­dence and denied her scholarship. Her boyfriend and many friends and fellow athletes abandoned her. Her medals and records were revoked.

Patiño became the first athlete to formally protest the chromosome test and to argue that disqualification was unjustified. After nearly three years, the I.A.A.F. agreed that without being able to use testosterone, her body had no advantage, and it reinstated Patiño. But by then, her hopes for making the Olympics were dashed.

Fellow athletes, the press and commenters on social media scrutinized Semenya’s body and made much of her supposed gender transgressions: her muscular physique, her deep voice, her flexed-biceps pose, her unshaved armpits, the long shorts she ran in instead of bikini shorts, in addition to her extraordinary speed. A story on Time magazine’s website was headlined “Could This Women’s World Champ Be a Man?” One of Semenya’s competitors, Elisa Cusma of Italy, who came in sixth, said: “These kind of people should not run with us. For me, she is not a woman. She is a man.” The Russian star runner Mariya Savinova reportedly sneered, “Just look at her.” (The World Anti-Doping Agency would later accuse Savinova of using performance-enhancing drugs and recommend a lifetime ban.) The I.A.A.F. general secretary, Pierre Weiss, said of Semenya, “She is a woman, but maybe not 100 percent.” Unlike India, South Africa filed a human rights complaint with the United Nations arguing that the I.A.A.F.’s testing of Semenya was “both sexist and racist.” Semenya herself would later write in a statement, “I have been subjected to unwarranted and invasive scrutiny of the most intimate and private details of my being.”

After nearly a year of negotiations (the details of which are not public) the I.A.A.F. cleared Semenya to run in 2010, and she went on to win the silver medal in the 2012 Olympics. She will be running in Rio.

The I.A.A.F. maintained it was obliged to protect female athletes from having “to compete against athletes with hormone-related performance advantages commonly associated with men.” In 2011, the association announced that it would abandon all references to “gender verification” or “gender policy.” Instead, it would institute a test for “hyperandrogenism” (high testosterone) when there are “reasonable grounds for believing” that a woman may have the condition. Women whose testosterone level was “within the male range” would be barred. There were two exceptions: If a woman like Maria Patiño was resistant to testosterone’s effects — or if a woman reduced her testosterone. This entails having her undescended testes surgically removed or taking hormone-suppressing drugs.

The framework for the article is the story of Dutee Chand, who has successfully caused a stay of the current International Association of Athletics (I.A.A.F.) policy until the I.A.A.F. can provide sufficient scientific evidence that the testosterone advantage of intersex women is identical to the advantage of male athletes over female athletes. The I.A.A.F. has until July 2017 to submit evidence, and the I.O.C. (the Olympic body) has said it will not move forward on any specific sex/gender policies until the case is settled.

At 16, she also became a national champion in the under-18 category, winning the 100 meters in 11.8 seconds. The next year, she won gold in the 100 meters and the 200 meters. In June 2014, she won gold yet again at the Asian championships in Taipei.

Not long after that, she received the call to go to Delhi and was tested. After her results came in, officials told her she could return to the national team only if she reduced her testosterone level — and that she wouldn’t be allowed to compete for a year. The particulars of her results were not made public, but the media learned, and announced, that Chand had “failed” a “gender test” and wasn’t a “normal” woman. For days, Chand cried inconsolably and refused to eat or drink. “Some in the news were saying I was a boy, and some said that maybe I was a transsexual,” Chand told me. “I felt naked. I am a human being, but I felt I was an animal. I wondered how I would live with so much humiliation.”

Over four days in March 2015, a three-judge panel heard Chand’s appeal, as a total of 16 witnesses, including scientists, sports officials and athletes, testified.

Female athletes, intersex and not, wondered just how this case would affect their lives. At the hearing, Paula Radcliffe, the British runner who holds the women’s world record for the marathon, testified for the I.A.A.F., saying elevated testosterone levels “make the competition unequal in a way greater than simple natural talent and dedication.” She added, “The concern remains that their bodies respond in different, stronger ways to training and racing than women with normal testosterone levels, and that this renders the competition fundamentally unfair.”

Just what role testosterone plays in improving athletic performance is still being debated. At the hearing, both sides agreed that synthetic testosterone — doping with anabolic steroids — does ramp up performance, helping male and female athletes jump higher and run faster. But they disagreed vehemently about whether the body’s own testosterone has the same effect.

I.A.A.F. witnesses testified that logic suggests that natural testosterone is likely to work the way its synthetic twin does. They pointed to decades of I.A.A.F. and I.O.C. testing showing that a disproportionate number of elite female athletes, particularly in track and field, have XY chromosomes; by their estimates, the presence of the Y chromosome in this group is more than 140 times higher than it is among the general female population. Surely, witnesses for the I.A.A.F. argued, that overrepresentation indicated that natural testosterone has an outsize influence on athletic prowess.

Chand’s witnesses countered that even if natural testosterone turns out to play a role in improving performance, testosterone alone can’t explain the overrepresentation of intersex elite athletes; after all, many of those XY female athletes had low testosterone or had cells that lacked androgen receptors. At the Atlanta Games in 1996, one of the few times the I.O.C. allowed detailed intersex-related data to be released, seven of the eight women who were found to have a Y chromosome turned out to be androgen insensitive: Their bodies couldn’t use the testosterone they made. Some geneticists speculate that the overrepresentation might be because of a gene on the Y chromosome that increases stature; height is clearly beneficial in several sports, though that certainly isn’t a factor for Chand.

In fact, the I.A.A.F.’s own witnesses estimated the performance advantage of women with high testosterone to be between 1 and 3 percent, and the court played down the 3 percent figure, because it was based on limited, unpublished data.

Chand’s witnesses also pointed out that researchers had identified more than 200 biological abnormalities that offer specific competitive advantages, among them increased aerobic capacity, resistance to fatigue, exceptionally long limbs, flexible joints, large hands and feet and increased numbers of fast-twitch muscle fibers — all of which make the idea of a level playing field illusory, and not one of which is regulated if it is innate.

But the I.A.A.F. argued that testosterone is different from other factors, because it is responsible for the performance gap between the sexes. That gap is the very reason sports is divided by sex, the I.A.A.F. says, so regulating testosterone is therefore justified.

Stéphane Bermon, an I.A.A.F. witness who took part in the efforts to identify females with high testosterone, acknowledged that doping was a significant threat to fairness but said that didn’t negate the need to also regulate the participation of women with naturally high testosterone who may have an advantage. He offered an analogy: “Air pollution, like tobacco smoking, contributes to lung cancer, but one should never have to choose between these two before implementing prevention measures,” he wrote in an email. “As a governing body, I.A.A.F. has to do its best to ensure a level playing field. ... These two topics are different but can lead to the same consequence, which is the impossibility for a dedi­cated athlete to compete and succeed against an opponent who benefits from an unfair advantage.”

Last July, the Court of Arbitration for Sport issued its ruling in Dutee Chand’s case. The three-judge panel concluded that although natural testosterone may play some role in athleticism, just what that role is, and how influential it is, remains unknown. As a result, the judges said that the I.A.A.F.’s policy was not justified by current scien­tific research: “While the evidence indicates that higher levels of naturally occurring testosterone may increase athletic performance, the Panel is not satisfied that the degree of that advantage is more significant than the advantage derived from the numerous other variables which the parties acknowledge also affect female athletic performance: for example, nutrition, access to specialist training facilities and coaching and other genetic and biological variations.”

The judges concluded that requiring women like Chand to change their bodies in order to compete was unjustifiably discriminatory. The panel sus­pended the policy until July 2017 to give the I.A.A.F. time to prove that the degree of competitive advantage conferred by naturally high testosterone in women was comparable to men’s advantage. If the I.A.A.F. doesn’t supply that evidence, the court said, the regulation “shall be declared void.” It was the first time the court had ever overruled a sport-governing body’s entire policy.

On June 25, Dutee Chand qualified for the Rio Olympics, running the 100 meters in 11.30 seconds in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and breaking a national record for India. Later that day, she posted an even faster time of 11.24 seconds. She will be the first Indian woman to run the 100 meters in the Olympics since 1980.

It's probably a little difficult to understand the entire article from just highlights, so I recommend you read it in full. I just picked out the parts I found interesting. There is also a section about policies regarding trans athletes at the end.

Bar me from Olympic games if old.

 

[Amalthea]

It's fucking horrible if peoples lifes get ruined by results they didn't even know of themselves.

I feel professional sports are like one of these outdated institutions that slowly get overtaken by scientific progress yet they rater ban and ruin peoples lifes rather than adapt.

Is it so hard to add new gender categories or is the IOC just too busy swimming in their bribe money from Brazil and Russia?

 

[Karsticles]

It's fucking horrible if peoples lifes get ruined by results they didn't even know of themselves.

I feel professional sports are like one of these outdated institutions that slowly get overtaken by scientific progress yet they rater ban and ruin peoples lifes rather than adapt.

Is it so hard to add new gender categories or is the IOC just too busy swimming in their bribe money from Brazil and Russia?

Would transgender individuals really want new gender categories? That's like having transgender bathrooms.

 

[Amalthea]

Would transgender individuals really want new gender categories? That's like having transgender bathrooms.

I would personally prefer to compete in the identified gender but honestly feel like more gender options seem just the (least) best that the broader society is willing to do if at all.

I'd rather create a physiological grading process for professional sports that rates the peoples strenght and fitness.

 

[The Faceless Master]

I would personally prefer to compete in the identified gender but honestly feel like more gender options seem just the (least) best that the broader society is willing to do if at all.

I'd rather create a physiological grading process for professional sports that rates the peoples strenght and fitness.

and what will we grade on?

Chand’s witnesses also pointed out that researchers had identified more than 200 biological abnormalities that offer specific competitive advantages, among them increased aerobic capacity, resistance to fatigue, exceptionally long limbs, flexible joints, large hands and feet and increased numbers of fast-twitch muscle fibers — all of which make the idea of a level playing field illusory, and not one of which is regulated if it is innate.

 

[TSM]

I would personally prefer to compete in the identified gender but honestly feel like more gender options seem just the (least) best that the broader society is willing to do if at all.

I'd rather create a physiological grading process for professional sports that rates the peoples strenght and fitness.

The problem is that sports are divided by gender because men have such a significant physical advantage. Women's sports already have a tough enough time as it is. If a third or fourth gender category were to exist it would not be the male athletes that would face a much tougher time finding funding for training, facilities and other expenses.

 

[bremon]

People have been competing against each other since the dawn of man. These tests weren't done in the Olympics a hundred years ago, they don't need to be done now. An event that is meant to be a display of global brotherhood and the athletic achievement of mankind shouldn't go to such lengths to ostracize and exclude people. Especially when "doping" tests only prove who's using outdated methods rather than the latest and greatest science.

 

[SodiumBenzoate]

This is an incredibly complicated, and quite strange, issue. In a vacuum the obvious solution to all of these problems is to just have one category for everyone...... But then we've just reverted back to the "men only" status quo we had 100 years ago, for 99% of events at least.

I can't help but feel that the conflation and confusion about what is "gender" and what is biological sex has a big role to play in these sports discussions.


The argument that a woman who is a biological male, and spent their entire formative life with a Y chromosome and all the physical differences that creates, should not compete with biological females, has merit. Should gender trump sex? Should Olympic sports even be the place where society talks about these tricky issues? I don't know.

 

[Amalthea]

and what will we grade on?

I guess everything from body measurements, muscle development, development of the sexual organs, speed, strenght.

It sounds extremely complicated but if they want to be THAT certain then it always will get complicated. But I'd rather have things being complicated for everyone than just for the few people that are different.

 

[Media]

I'm not much a follower of sports in general, but I thought the focus was on 'natural ability'.

If banning intersex women is a thing, why not also ban overly tall people? After all, it gives them an unfair advantage over their shorter peers.

Being born slightly different (as we are finding out that intersex is more common than previously assumed) shouldn't be grounds for being banned from sports.

 

[Deleted member 13876]

If only Holy Baikal were around for this.

 

[hodayathink]

I'm not much a follower of sports in general, but I thought the focus was on 'natural ability'.

If banning intersex women is a thing, why not also ban overly tall people? After all, it gives them an unfair advantage over their shorter peers.

Being born slightly different (as we are finding out that intersex is more common than previously assumed) shouldn't be grounds for being banned from sports.

I understand why they did it (especially with the knowledge that synthetic testosterone is banned and widely known to be a definite PED, why wouldn't natural testosterone act the same way), but the ruling is absolutely right in that they need to prove that natural testosterone acts as a PED before banning people because of it.

 

[cdyhybrid]

Maybe they should worry about the raw sewage and butchered body parts in the waters they expect their athletes to get in.

 

[Media]

I understand why they did it (especially with the knowledge that synthetic testosterone is banned and widely known to be a definite PED, why wouldn't natural testosterone act the same way), but the ruling is absolutely right in that they need to prove that natural testosterone acts as a PED before banning people because of it.

Well, in my opinion, if you produce more natural testosterone than your peers, that's natural ability. I mean, I am sure there are variations on testosterone production over everyone on the teams, not just intersex people. So I would assume that people who produce a bit more than others should be banned as well with that thinking?

I know it's a pretty tricky subject, but it just seems massively unfair. Those poor girls.

 

[Pinewood]

Well, in my opinion, if you produce more natural testosterone than your peers, that's natural ability. I mean, I am sure there are variations on testosterone production over everyone on the teams, not just intersex people. So I would assume that people who produce a bit more than others should be banned as well with that thinking?

I know it's a pretty tricky subject, but it just seems massively unfair. Those poor girls.

Why? As long as they arent taking drugs, its fair game.

 

[hodayathink]

Well, in my opinion, if you produce more natural testosterone than your peers, that's natural ability. I mean, I am sure there are variations on testosterone production over everyone on the teams, not just intersex people. So I would assume that people who produce a bit more than others should be banned as well with that thinking?

I know it's a pretty tricky subject, but it just seems massively unfair. Those poor girls.

The basic argument seems to be (and again, the problem is that they haven't actually proven their argument to be true, just assumed it) that once you get to some level of natural testosterone production, you're body physiologically become more akin to a male body than a female one, which makes it unfair that you are competing against the women as opposed to competing against men. If that statement were true, I could see their point. And now they have a year to prove their statement to be true.

Edit: And technically, they're not saying that intersex people can't compete at all, I don't think. What they're saying is that they'd have to compete as men, and the problem with that is that while their times/distances/scores are Olympic level for women, they aren't particularly close to Olympic level for men.

 

[Transhuman]

I am flabbergasted that in this day and age the Olympic committee thinks it can practise having sex with female Olympians and we are all supposed to act like that is normal.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Surprised Erika Schinegger wasn't mentioned. During the preparation for the winter olympics durng the 60ies the IOC discovered she had male sex organs in her body and was informally disqualified and began transitioning.

Was able to keep his medals but he eventually gave them to the 2nd place.

 

[Media]

Why? As long as they arent taking drugs, its fair game.

That's kinda my point. If no PEDs are involved and it's their bodies own natural hormones, then it should be fair game.

The basic argument seems to be (and again, the problem is that they haven't actually proven their argument to be true, just assumed it) that once you get to some level of natural testosterone production, you're body physiologically become more akin to a male body than a female one, which makes it unfair that you are competing against the women as opposed to competing against men. If that statement were true, I could see their point. And now they have a year to prove their statement to be true.

Edit: And technically, they're not saying that intersex people can't compete at all, I don't think. What they're saying is that they'd have to compete as men, and the problem with that is that while their times/distances/scores are Olympic level for women, they aren't particularly close to Olympic level for men.

Well, women produce testosterone as well, just not usually nearly as much as men. Women can even have too little testosterone in their bodies and that can cause problems. Just as men produce small amounts of estrogen (or really, estradiol, but it's basically the same thing)

So what I am saying, is that men or women don't produce the exact same levels of the hormones, so arguing that women who produce more testosterone than others naturally are being given an unfair advantage is kinda dumb to me, since some men produce more than other men and are generally just called like, gifted.

 

[numble]

Kodak is the official sponsor of the Gender Certificate of the XVIII Winter Olympic Games.

 

[Messofanego]

They still haven't produced evidence that natural testosterone in the male range gives a performance advantage in the first place, so it's clear they need to sort that out before making such exclusionary rulings based on speculation. The unwillingness here seems to be more social than genuine. If women are scared of transwomen, that's just discrimination without evidence.

Reactions among trans advocates ran the gamut. Many trans advocates viewed the liberalized regulations as a victory. But some trans­women athletes who long ago had their testicles removed (and as a result, make virtually no testosterone) were unhappy with the policy; they argued that lifting the surgery requirement gave transwomen who still had testosterone-producing testicles an unfair advantage over trans­women who didn’t. And still other advocates said that requiring transwomen to suppress their testosterone below 10 nanomoles is premised on the very same claim about testosterone that the court rejected — that naturally made testosterone is the primary cause of men’s competitive advantage over women.

Without evidence that “male range” testosterone levels really do provide that advantage, some say it’s premature to base a policy on speculation — especially one that requires people to transform their bodies. In May, the Canadian Center for Ethics in Sports, which manages the country’s antidoping program and recommends ethics standards, issued trans-related guidelines for all Canadian sports organizations. The statement says policies that regulate eligibility, like those related to hormones, should be backed by defensible science. It adds, “There is simply not the evidence to suggest whether, or to what degree, hormone levels consistently confer competitive advantage.” And yet it’s hard to imagine that many female athletes would easily accept the idea of competing against transwomen athletes without those regulations in place.​

 

[Edsmells12345]

Wowee. Accidentally read this title as Sexting Female Olympians. Think I need some sleep.

 

[kirblar]

That's kinda my point. If no PEDs are involved and it's their bodies own natural hormones, then it should be fair game.

The problem is that the rules are in place explicitly to allow women the opportunity to compete with people who don't have the advantage of male levels of sex hormones (i.e. other women.)

 

[hodayathink]

Well, women produce testosterone as well, just not usually nearly as much as men. Women can even have too little testosterone in their bodies and that can cause problems. Just as men produce small amounts of estrogen (or really, estradiol, but it's basically the same thing)

So what I am saying, is that men or women don't produce the exact same levels of the hormones, so arguing that women who produce more testosterone than others naturally are being given an unfair advantage is kinda dumb to me, since some men produce more than other men and are generally just called like, gifted.

I'd imagine that, for women at least, what they're proposing is an acceptable range of testosterone, and that anyone above that range not be allowed to compete, based on their whole idea of what they think natural testosterone does. The whole thing is based on the assumption that if your natural testosterone is up at or near a man's level of natural testosterone, then you should be competing with men and not women. Again, unless they actually prove that there is a clear large benefit for female athletes who produce that much testosterone, then it's absolutely not fair to exclude the women who are producing that level of testosterone naturally.

 

[OttomanScribe]

I'd like to think that creating events which allowed all genders would encourage the creation of sports which were diverse in skill requirements and thus more likely to have a diversity of body types represented.

However women already suffer a significant disadvantage, not solely because of physical differences, but also because sponsorship and training opportunities are so much more limited in most sports, so there is already a disadvantage before physical abilities are taken into account.

 

[Moral Panic]

They pointed to decades of I.A.A.F. and I.O.C. testing showing that a disproportionate number of elite female athletes, particularly in track and field, have XY chromosomes; by their estimates, the presence of the Y chromosome in this group is more than 140 times higher than it is among the general female population. Surely, witnesses for the I.A.A.F. argued, that overrepresentation indicated that natural testosterone has an outsize influence on athletic prowess.

Eventually female Olympics might be a battle between women with XY chromosomes and women with high testosterone.

 

[hodayathink]

I'd like to think that creating events which allowed all genders would encourage the creation of sports which were diverse in skill requirements and thus more likely to have a diversity of body types represented.

However women already suffer a significant disadvantage, not solely because of physical differences, but also because sponsorship and training opportunities are so much more limited in most sports, so there is already a disadvantage before physical abilities are taken into account.

Do you realize how rare it is that we "create" sports in the first place? At this point, many of the sports in the Olympics have been there for the past 100 years, and the majority of the ones that haven't were actually around 100 years ago and just didn't get added until later. And basically the only sports where this could happen are the ones that are judged on creative merits and not measurable ones (the current ones we have like that being things like figure skating, gymnastics, or synchronized swimming). And even then, you'd still have to contend with the fact that the men would be able to run faster or jump higher/father than women.

 

[OttomanScribe]

Do you realize how rare it is that we "create" sports in the first place? At this point, many of the sports in the Olympics have been there for the past 100 years, and the majority of the ones that haven't were actually around 100 years ago and just didn't get added until later. And basically the only sports where this could happen are the ones that are judged on creative merits and not measurable ones (the current ones we have like that being things like figure skating, gymnastics, or synchronized swimming). And even then, you'd still have to contend with the fact that the men would be able to fun faster or jump higher/father than women.

I feel like 'type of sport' is going to be a less entrenched thing than 'gender norms'...

Doesn't the Olympics have some sort of revolving door with a bunch of events added and removed over time? I can't imagine it would be a bad thing for people to put effort into something that would be open to most competitors.

 

[numble]

I feel like 'type of sport' is going to be a less entrenched thing than 'gender norms'...

Doesn't the Olympics have some sort of revolving door with a bunch of events added and removed over time? I can't imagine it would be a bad thing for people to put effort into something that would be open to most competitors.

The Olympics tries to restrict the number of sports to a specific number due to the increased cost of hosting games, length of the games, etc.

There are entrenched interests in sports, with national and international sport federations.

 

[hodayathink]

I feel like 'type of sport' is going to be a less entrenched thing than 'gender norms'...

Doesn't the Olympics have some sort of revolving door with a bunch of events added and removed over time? I can't imagine it would be a bad thing for people to put effort into something that would be open to most competitors.

Sports can get added and subtracted, but the majority of the sports currently in the Olympics have been in there for a while. As in, most of the events that were in the 1896 Olympics are still in the 2016 games, and many that have been added since are basically variations of those events (i.e. different strokes and/or lengths for swimming and track, or adding women's equivalents to male events) or, like I said, sports that have actually been around for as long as the Olympics have in the first place (the martial arts events, soccer, golf).

 

[OttomanScribe]

There are entrenched interests in sports, with national and international sport federations.

Certainly, though these, entrenched as they are, are not as entrenched as gender norms imo.

Sports can get added and subtracted, but the majority of the sports currently in the Olympics have been in there for a while. As in, most of the events that were in the 1896 Olympics are still in the 2016 games, and many that have been added since are basically variations of those events (i.e. different strokes and/or lengths for swimming and track, or adding women's equivalents to male events) or, like I said, sports that have actually been around for as long as the Olympics have in the first place (the martial arts events, soccer, golf).

Okay.

 

[YourMaster]

That's kinda my point. If no PEDs are involved and it's their bodies own natural hormones, then it should be fair game.



Well, women produce testosterone as well, just not usually nearly as much as men. Women can even have too little testosterone in their bodies and that can cause problems. Just as men produce small amounts of estrogen (or really, estradiol, but it's basically the same thing)

So what I am saying, is that men or women don't produce the exact same levels of the hormones, so arguing that women who produce more testosterone than others naturally are being given an unfair advantage is kinda dumb to me, since some men produce more than other men and are generally just called like, gifted.

This is an oversimplification, because there's always a grey area. Between 'purely female' and 'purely male' there's a whole spectrum of people who could be identified as 'in between'. And as long as sports are divided between 'male' and 'female', athletes will need to be divided along the same lines, which does not have a real biological basis.
And all these in-betweeners are 'natural'.

Not sure if serious...

There are clear biological reasons for it.

No there's not. There are social reasons for that.
When all sports are unisex, you'll find that the top is dominated by males, but that won't kill anybody. It's just something we don't want for whatever reason.

 

[inner-G]

Is it sexist to have separate male/female events in the first place?

 

[GHG]

Is it sexist to have separate male/female events in the first place?

Not sure if serious...

There are clear biological reasons for it.

 

[Hip Hop]

Is it sexist to have separate male/female events in the first place?

no

 

[Raylan]

The night before the race, a team official told her that her chromosome test results were abnormal. A more detailed investigation showed that although the outside of her body was fully female, Patiño had XY chromosomes and internal testes. But because of a genetic mutation, her cells completely resisted the testosterone she produced, so her body actually had access to less testosterone than a typical woman. Just before the Spanish national championships began, Spanish athletic officials told her she should feign an injury and withdraw from athletics permanently and without fuss. She refused. Instead, she ran the 60-meter hurdles and won, at which point someone leaked her test results to the press. Patiño was thrown off the national team, expelled from the athletes’ resi­dence and denied her scholarship. Her boyfriend and many friends and fellow athletes abandoned her. Her medals and records were revoked.

Patiño became the first athlete to formally protest the chromosome test and to argue that disqualification was unjustified. After nearly three years, the I.A.A.F. agreed that without being able to use testosterone, her body had no advantage, and it reinstated Patiño. But by then, her hopes for making the Olympics were dashed.

What the fuck? I mean, what?
She didn't use any drugs to "enhance" anything or "change" something on/inside her body. So was born this way. She is a woman! End of story. So let her do her thing.

Seriously, what the fuck?!

 

[neorej]

I'll be honest, I first thought the Olympic Comittee in Rio had found some new perverted low point.

 

[Madao]

instead of finding ways to fix the issue before creating a problem, they do the opposite and wreck people before doing anything useful and the public just goes along with the crap instead of trying to understand the whole situation and the person affected.

it's so unfair being punished for something you never had any control over.

 

[kirblar]

What the fuck? I mean, what?
She didn't use any drugs to "enhance" anything or "change" something on/inside her body. So was born this way. She is a woman! End of story. So let her do her thing.

Seriously, what the fuck?!

Yeah, this one is bullshit because it's AIS - the testosterone is absurdly inefficient for someone w/ the condition.

 

[Always-honest]

Is it sexist to have separate male/female events in the first place?

No. We ARE different (and that is fine). Some people take PC in a ridiculous direction.

 

[patapuf]

No there's not. There are social reasons for that.
When all sports are unisex, you'll find that the top is dominated by males, but that won't kill anybody. It's just something we don't want for whatever reason.

If we remove female only disciplines it means women won't be able to do sports professionally and that they disappear from high end competition (it won't just be "dominated by men" it will be nigh exclusively men). That has implication as low as "scholarships" given out for sports and early encouragement to do sports beyond casual fun.

It doesn't "kill" anybody but it's far from "whatever reason".

 

[nOoblet16]

What do you guys think of a simple testosterone level check ? Naturally sport is one area where this gets a bit greyed out since you can have transgenders competing (don't see an issue with that and there shouldn't be, regardless of whatever sex organ they have) but differences in testosterone level could result in an advantage/disadvantage.

Sport requiring strength and stamina, men would do better while sports requiring flexibility and dexterity...women would do better.
But since most sports require strength and stamina...it means making sports unisex would mean women disappear from any high level event.

 

[Greddleok]

What do you guys think of a simple testosterone level check?

Pointless. It means basically nothing.

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

That's kinda my point. If no PEDs are involved and it's their bodies own natural hormones, then it should be fair game.



Well, women produce testosterone as well, just not usually nearly as much as men. Women can even have too little testosterone in their bodies and that can cause problems. Just as men produce small amounts of estrogen (or really, estradiol, but it's basically the same thing)

So what I am saying, is that men or women don't produce the exact same levels of the hormones, so arguing that women who produce more testosterone than others naturally are being given an unfair advantage is kinda dumb to me, since some men produce more than other men and are generally just called like, gifted.

The difference between exceptional men/women and normal men/women is far, far less than the difference between men and women.

So much so that you couldn't even call the competition between men and women at certain activities a sport.

The division of sex in sports exists so that female athletics can have meaning and accomplishment.

 

[tcrunch]

Is it sexist to have separate male/female events in the first place?

Per the article

Nor has any study proved that natural testosterone in the “male range” provides women with a competitive advantage commensurate with the 10 to 12 percent advantage that elite male athletes typically have over elite female athletes in comparable events. In fact, the I.A.A.F.’s own witnesses estimated the performance advantage of women with high testosterone to be between 1 and 3 percent, and the court played down the 3 percent figure, because it was based on limited, unpublished data.

Even the I.A.A.F. does not believe a high testosterone condition in women means they will have a male performance level.

 

[YourMaster]

If we remove female only disciplines it means women won't be able to do sports professionally and that they disappear from high end competition (it won't just be "dominated by men" it will be nigh exclusively men). That has implication as low as "scholarships" given out for sports and early encouragement to do sports beyond casual fun.

It doesn't "kill" anybody but it's far from "whatever reason".

True, but these are social constructs. We could decide that we want to give people money to play sports and that we sorta want to give women a roughly equal change to make some money to in sports.(Not the same amount of course.) But this means that there's always a grey area, and there's no fair way to draw a line, ever.

The difference between exceptional men/women and normal men/women is far, far less than the difference between men and women.

So much so that you couldn't even call the competition between men and women at certain activities a sport.

The division of sex in sports exists so that female athletics can have meaning and accomplishment.

This is not true at all. Training comes first, natural ability second and gender third. The best Tennis female tennis player in the world is better than over 3 billion men in tennis, and this goes for all sports.
However, the 'problem' is only the top level, where only people with optimal training and natural ability compete, the field is close together and the difference in gender there would make it basically impossible for a female to win.

Most people have no hope of ever reaching the top in their (or any) sport, and yet they can enjoy it. You can feel accomplished when you win a match in your local tournament. That does mean you're the best in the world, no, but neither are you the 'best in the world' if you win in a female-only division.

 

[Media]

The difference between exceptional men/women and normal men/women is far, far less than the difference between men and women.

So much so that you couldn't even call the competition between men and women at certain activities a sport.

The division of sex in sports exists so that female athletics can have meaning and accomplishment.

I understand the division of sex in sports, that makes sense to me. But in my mind all the people competing for the Olympics are exceptional anyhow since you know...Olympics. I figured natural ability trumped anything else. And since there really isn't any science on if women with extra testosterone preform way better than those that don't have extra, saying XY women can't compete is dumb to me.

But again, I am not a follower of this stuff, and feel bad for the women who got caught up in it.